


Home Again

by SectoBoss



Category: Stand Still Stay Silent
Genre: Gen, Trolls, Year 0
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-25
Updated: 2015-11-25
Packaged: 2018-05-03 08:57:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5284661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SectoBoss/pseuds/SectoBoss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ninety years gone and back at last. A story of the troll’s return to Amalienborg in chapter 9.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home Again

**Author's Note:**

> Gwenno from the forum [drew a picture](http://mursen.deviantart.com/art/Leaf-troll-and-the-ghost-574357457) about what might be happening on Page 426, and I span it out into this.

They wake to a beautiful morning and terrible news.

Orders in the night, Denmark’s last command: _pack up and go._ The city cannot be saved, the mainland cannot be saved, a tiny island on the edge of the Baltic is the last hope of an entire country. Denmark needs labourers and soldiers. All others, surplus to requirements. _Pack up and go. A ship is at the coast. Don’t be late, it won’t wait._

The soldiers in Kastellet have followed those orders, outwardly furious, inwardly glad.

And so they were left behind.

Who they were in the old world doesn’t matter anymore. In the new, there is only one occupation: survivor. Or corpse.

They have supplies for a while but eventually they dwindle. The food crates empty one by one. The water bottles empty faster than the rain and the first autumn snows can refill them. And the medicine for their charges, those silent shapes lined up on the beds, begins to run dry.

They argue and debate and fight but there was in the end only one option. They have to scavenge, to pick over the bones of the city that only a month ago had been their home. Perhaps if they are lucky they’ll find a supermarket unlooted, a pharmacy intact. And if they are not lucky, well, they do not wish to think about that.

Yet another beautiful dawn, autumn’s regal red staining the sky, as those who can walk leave to try and find help for those who cannot. They mutter prayers and nervously check the few weapons they have amongst them.

To travel in the day is dangerous. Rival scavengers and looters are turning vicious. Occasionally you hear the pop-pop- _crack_ of guns on the wind, people killing each other over a few unopened tins with whatever the army left behind.

But the alternative, to travel at night, is unthinkable. New things rule Copenhagen when the sun goes down.

They file past the beds, past the prone and sleeping shapes, to reach the door. Some don’t look, others do. One writes a note, in case by some miracle they wake. Promising them they’ll be back. No matter what.

Old world hope, sealed up in a bag, left on a shelf, left to rot in the new world.

 

* * *

 

Day and night cycle overhead. Snow and rain come and go, punctuated with brilliant sunshine.

In a building not far away from the towering stone and vaulted dome where the sleepers lie, sweating, groaning, choking, someone collapses to the ground.

They have to get back.

They cannot.

_They have to._

Many sallied out, only this one remains. Scavengers claimed some, monsters others. One or two it turned out were not immune, even though they thought they had been.

This last one sits down heavily, in this small concrete grotto. It is good shelter. And the light is fading. Better to rest in the night and carry on in the morning, than risk carrying on. The sleepers will last a little longer. Surely?

Back to the wall, rifle across the knees, eyes closed, asleep.

And in their lungs and their veins, the pathogen they carry awakes.

 

* * *

 

Woken by… what?

An engine’s growl, a building’s dying roar. Cracked concrete and rotten wood crumble away. Flesh and bone burst aside.

Curious, investigating, skittering across snow.

_have to get back_

The sun burns like a branding iron. The snow provides respite, cold and soothing.

_quick quick no time to lose  
_

What is this machine? A new mind glares out through empty eyes. It follows the vibrations the thing leaves behind, tracking it under the snow.

_all the way back  
_

Footsteps above. Three separate themselves from the metal bulk. They walk inside, then back out.

_scavengers, looters, no no no!  
_

Prey!

Old world mind and new world instincts arrive at the same conclusion, agree on action. It’s rare these days.

Leaping out of the snow, hurling itself upwards on legs that were once ribs, teeth bared. The three figures stumble and recoil, two staggering to one side and the third throwing an arm out into its path. Teeth meet fabric and muscle, tear, bite through.

Something hard cracks down on its skull and it loses its grip, falls back onto the cold snow.

_i'm here i'm coming i made it back!  
_

Burrowing, fleeing. Up steps it remembers, through a ragged hole in the wall it does not. Blood, thick and sickly, oozing from a wound on what’s left of its head.

The sleepers stretch out before it and it scuttles over to them. It tries but it cannot reach up to them, instead scrabbles uselessly against the beds.

Exhausted from its wounds, shivering from the cold, it cowers under a bed as booted feet close in outside.

_i came back  
_

On the wall above, a shadow, something glimpsed out of the corner of the eye, shifts and moves. It casts a glance down. Sees through ninety years of decay and mutation. Sees who has at last returned.

Fingers that are not there track down the wall, tendrils of shade wrap around a festering skull. They begin to squeeze, and bone begins to creak and crack.

A kindness.

Darkness begins to claim the little rag of flesh on the floor. It does not resist it.

And through it all, a tiny little spark shines through the encroaching black, a little fleck of forgiveness and reunion’s joy that stays with the thing that left so long ago. Stays with it as it leaves for the last time.

_Welcome back._

_I missed you._


End file.
